shaun jeffrey

VIP

8

Jaw-droppingly intimate and sensitive. Be prepared to be wrecked - the whole theater was shaking with sobs at points.

Beautifully and specifically queer. I've never on screen seen gay sex that felt this much like gay sex. The texture of it. There's a brief, funny, inter-micro-generation terminology convo that if you are LGBTQ of a certain age, you've had. There are two coming out conversations with lines that I swear are plagiarized from my life. There's a delightful subversion, in an early scene, of cruising, that achieves a cocktail of funny and sweet and sad that returns throughout the film (most notably in a moment where a 48-year-old Adam climbs into bed with his parents wearing a 12-year-old's pajamas). The exploration of how things can be so much better than 1987 but still not fine, and the ways the not-okayness of 1987 is still with us, especially in the psyches of folks that were there… so relatable and such a rare and subtle theme.

There is a final twist that, while devastating, does some real damage to Adam's character and, in my opinion, the emotional impact of the movie. Investing incredibly deeply in a fantasy of a relationship with a neighbor that didn’t happen is creepy where imagining you can talk to your dead parents again is sweet and sad. We know early on that the interactions with Adam’s parents aren’t a part of conventional reality and that doesn’t diminish any of their emotional impact, but the romantic relationship being unreal cheapens it.

This last emotional gutting felt unnecessary and unearned to me: it makes me hesitant to recommend the movie, despite how much it affected me, despite the impeccable execution. A friend who saw the movie with me and didn’t personally relate to as many of the queer culture touchpoints felt emotionally manipulated, and I get that. But aside from the last few minutes, my experience of the movie was near-perfect.

I can say straight up this will not be a movie for everyone, but it really clicked for me. I would also say a blind watch is preferable in movies like this, I went in knowing almost nothing and if possible I think that's the way to watch the movie if possible.

For me it was incredibly immersive once established, with incredible sound design and score. The slow build of tension, unease and dread as things unfold. I'll admit, I've always been a fan of mediums that give the viewer the same amount of knowledge of whats going on as the characters have, and this nails that.

The premise has a whole has been done many times before, including this years Knock at the Cabin, but I've not seen that or read the book it was based on. But in relation to the other similar films, this takes the top spot for me.

While the ending itself is probably the weakest part of the movie for me personally because it answers just slightly too many questions a little bit too easily, the journey to get there was still worth the time and I think the ending might still work for others.

Another Bond pastiche from Matthew Vaughn, and once again it’s worse than the last one. Here we have what is basically another Kingsman film, but this time it’s made for the wine moms who had found their new favorite film with The Lost City. The plot is quite bonkers, it's so dense and the amount of schlocky plot twists indicate that Vaughn’s at least somewhat aware of how tasteless it all is. Sometimes you can still find traces of the cleverness you’d expect from him, but generally it favours being loud and cringe. I understand that he’s targeting a different demographic here than with Kingsman, but the end result is so tame and commercial that it feels more like typical streaming filler (Red Notice, Ghosted). Some of the acting is atrocious. Obviously Rockwell puts in the best work, but it doesn’t make up for the stiff performances by Cavill, Howard and Lipa (though she gets a pass for being Dua Lipa). The directing is also noticeably a step down compared to Vaughn’s previous stuff. It doesn’t feel like he put much heart and soul in this, because besides some good stuntwork it looks like shit. There’s just so much plastic sheen (artificial bright lighting, tacky CGI, unnatural compositions and camera movement) that it becomes incredibly ugly to look at. You could pass that off as ‘well it’s meant to be cartoonish’, but I’m not going to make that leap when there’s this little artistry to it. Vaughn needs to stop making these, the whole thing feels predictable and played out.

2.5/10

The season finale of "The Last of Us" left me utterly confused. Why were the roles of Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey suddenly recast with Adam Driver and Ariana Greenblatt? Why does Ellie suddenly not speak English anymore? And why is Joel's daughter suddenly named Nevine and not Sarah? I didn't see the time travel plot to the age of the dinosaurs coming either.

Getting back to seriousness, "65" is a pretty boring movie that would have been a perfect fit for Netflix. Nothing is really all that bad, nothing is particularly good. Everything is extremely mediocre. You've probably forgotten most of the plot by the time the credits roll. Adam Driver is a fantastic actor and Ariana Greenblatt has been good elsewhere (for example in "Love and Monsters"), but neither get any material to work with here. From a technical standpoint, there's not much to complain about with "65." The special effects are solid, and the film is competently shot. However, the plot is very repetitive, so despite a runtime of only 90 minutes, I kept looking at my watch. If you are eager to see the film, you should wait until it is available on a streaming service.

Viola did an absolutely terrific job, as well as Daniel Kaluuya and Cynthia as well, for the short time she was present. Aside from that, all performances were forgettable. The first half of the film was mostly well done - the setting up of desperation, the building of characters, etc. From the actual 'heist' and on, I lost complete interest, as if this was a film I'd seen a thousand times. The characters lost their fire, intensity and drive to do the job. I feel if the beginning of the film was lengthened, some trimming near the actual heist, and cut out the entire end, this would have been a better film. Come to think of it, the entire reveal of Liam Neeson's character should be removed. He added absolutely nothing to any part of the story. The only part where I was full, unbreakably engaged in the scene, was when Jatemme was at the bar, speaking with Welsh, and then stabbing the shit out of him, that is the kind of fucking intensity this film should have used, not conversations with pointless, 1-scene characters (such as the reverend, and maybe Mulligan's father).

It's rather sad that any time I heard a Chicago accent, all I could think about was the movie The Town, which is one of the gold standards of the heist genre. I enjoyed remembering that movie more, than watching this one.

Now a heist movie with Neeson AND Bernthal? That's something I want to see.